We were asked yesterday about the design choices for our first title The People’s Republic of Absurdia – namely, why the hell did you go for crisp white pages rather than the literary standard cream?
Like all decisions at SFB, it was taken in conjunction with the brains trust – Abi & Siggy – and the writer.
In Absurdia, one of the themes/ideas is that following an environmental plague caused by the waste of rampant consumerism, the new government embarks on a radical renewal programme…
“Pontiff turned to the huge window to take in the view – this was a part of town that had benefitted from The Great Clean-Up. Pontiff gawped at the sparse, clinical Kubrik-esque images of the urban landscape, cleaner yes, but deadened. He knew that when the sun went down many of the buildings would be shrouded in total darkness and that it was fair to assume any building with continuous energy housed workers engaged in government activity. Canary Wharf loomed in the late evening sun, illuminated from within.”
We wanted to give the sensation of this new ‘clean’ environment as the reader turned the pages. The whiteness is also in striking, stark contrast to the red & black horror-meets-comedy-meets-dystopia design of Josh Tinsley’s front cover. This black comedy terror surrounds the whiteness, and puts the lie to the new ‘freedoms’ the Liberal Compassionate government claim they have restored. In truth, the people in The People’s Republic of Britannia are horrifically repressed, their every move regulated and recorded to ‘protect the environment.’
Again, the whiteness gives the illusion of cleanliness and freedom, but though sold as that, the real truth is far more disturbing…
Sigmund Fraud Books 